


The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

by Prochytes



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26874544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: Amenadiel and Linda provide post-match analysis of a brawl between a sassy demon and an uptight angel.
Relationships: Mazikeen/Remiel
Comments: 6
Kudos: 18





	The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers to the end of S5. Some (off-stage) violence.

Amenadiel was slow to pick up. Lucifer knew that his brother was not what you would call an early adopter; there had been jokes even in the Silver City about how long it had taken Dad’s Most Favoured to be reconciled to the discovery of the wheel. Maybe he had just forgotten how cellphones worked. On the eighth ring, however, the call connected.

“Is this important?” Amenadiel sounded flustered. It was never a look he wore that well. “I’m in the middle of something, here.”

“Assuredly, brother.” Lucifer, clamping his ’phone between shoulder and neck, glanced out across the bullpen, to where the Detective and some beat-cops were carrying on an earnest conversation. “Our latest investigation has been derailed by reports of a … disturbance.”

“What sort of a disturbance?”

“I believe that the exact words our new friend Tony from Traffic used were: ‘Two smoking hot babes beating hell’s bells out of one another’.” Lucifer frowned. “Which, as I’ve told the Detective, can’t be true. We both know that Hell is a bell-free zone, and has been since the invention of the vuvuzela.”

“Why would such an altercation come across the desk at Chloe’s Precinct?” Amenadiel’s voice was still oddly constrained.

“Because it seems that the ‘Babe Brawl' went on for most of the day – and, apparently, across most of L. A., too. Officers at _one_ of the scenes tried to intervene; they were fished out of the River, lightly stunned. But what’s bothering the Detective is that the physical description for one of the fair opponents matches Maze.”

“That’s surely someone who can look after herself?”

“Of course. But the Detective is understandably troubled by reports of an unknown woman who can slug it out with our little ninja from dawn to dusk without becoming pavement pizza early in the process.” The Detective’s conversation showed no sign of abating. “I’m wondering… is any of our family in town?”

“Do you converse on that device with our brother Lucifer,” piped up another voice down the line, “First of the myriad Fallen, Duke of Hell?”

“Ah. The fog lifts.” Lucifer sighed. “Say hello to Remiel from me.”

***

“So,” Lucifer continued, “has Dad’s Right Pinkie spilled on why she’s poking around down here again?”

“Luci…”

“I find it hard to believe that Remy would come all the way from the Silver City just to whale on Maze. Did Sodom and Gomorrah demand a rematch?”

“That’s what I’m trying to work out. Can you tell Chloe that it’s being handled?”

“Very well, brother. But don’t dawdle.”

Amenadiel put the ’phone back in his pocket, as Lucifer hung up. He looked along the park bench at his sister. Remiel boasted a slowly ripening black eye. Her hair was straggly with sweat, and what smelled to Amenadiel like sea-water.

“Where were we?” he said.

“I was imploring your aid, brother,” Remiel leaned forward earnestly, which was the way that Remy did most things, “that we might uncover, together, the roots of my failure and my shame.”

Amenadiel sighed. “You’re not a failure, Remy.”

“I could not best a demon of our brother’s Pit. There can be no greater dereliction.”

“Run the whole story by me, from the beginning.”

“I came down from the Silver City because I had been thinking on your words, before we parted: that even this rancid den of vice and degradation might yet boast the blossom of some virtue.”

Amenadiel was quite certain that he had not said that, but millennia of this happening with Lucifer had taught him that, sometimes, you just had to roll with the conversational punches. “Did you find one?”

“I was intent upon the search. But my hunt was barely begun, when I caught a scent: the foul mephitic reek of Lilith’s brood. And also ice-cream.”

***

“It was pistachio,” said Maze, lounging a little more gingerly than usual on Linda’s sofa, “and let me tell you: it was _fine_. None of that bright green Kryptonite shit. Three scoops of the genuine ochre.”

“The ice-cream sounds lovely,” said Linda. “How, exactly, did the fist-fight start?”

“I was getting to that.” Maze wriggled between the cushions. She had a split lip; a trail of blood meandering below her nose; and two or three large bruises on her chin. “I was on the waterfront, minding my own business…”

“Uh-huh,” said Linda, wearing that carefully evacuated expression which therapists favour as a canvas on to which a guilty conscience might project.

Maze, however, rattled on without defensiveness: “I was between gigs. When, suddenly, I hear…”

***

“‘Ho, hellspawn! Set down your whipped cream confection, and your strangely tiny wooden spoon, that we may try each other’s mettle, hand to hand.’” Several pigeons bolted skywards, having made the discovery, like their ancestors all the way back to Eden, that Remy didn’t have an indoor voice. Amenadiel smiled reassuringly at startled joggers, until they moved away. “To which the fiend replied…”

***

“‘You wanna piece of me, angel-cakes? BRING IT.’ And did she ever.” Maze looked off into the middle distance. Linda wondered whether it was a good time to remind her that using a hell-forged blade as a fidget-spinner was prohibited when Charlie was in the room; and decided, on balance, that it probably wasn’t. “Man, the next few hours were intense.”

***

“We fought on the waterfront,” said Remiel. “We fought in the streets. Several humans invited us to desist. You would have been pleased, brother: I politely declined, and so did she.”

“Mmm,” said Amenadiel, wondering how chilly the River was, this time of year.

“We duelled until the day darkened, without respite or result. I could not prevail. And yet…” Remiel hung her head, “… and yet, I should have done.”

***

“I got the yips. I got the HIM-damned yips.” Maze waved a vague accusatory finger heavenwards. “Picture this. It’s about four p.m. Angel-cakes is on the ropes. Not literally. There _had been_ ropes, but that was at lunchtime, when she kicked me through a marina. Anyway… Angel-cakes is woozy from a sweet right hook. She’s tottering on those long legs like Bambi…”

“You’ve seen _Bambi_?”

“Damn straight. Funniest thing I ever saw on film.”

Linda guessed, without effort, which scene Maze meant.

“… and I say to myself: ‘Bitch, you are hot, but you are done.’ I could have finished her.” The blade span and glinted. “I _should_ have finished her. But instead…”

***

“… I froze.” Remiel was literally wringing her hands. “The hold was beyond even her great strength to counter. I am sure of it, brother - by then, I knew the limits of that supple, well-muscled body an it were my own.”

“Uh-huh,” said Amenadiel.

“You seem distracted.”

“No – just… forming a hypothesis.”

“And yet I froze, and so let her fight free. My frailty cost the cause of Heaven dear. What is wrong with me, brother? What is wrong?”

“I think,” said Amenadiel, “that I need to make a ’phone call.”

***

“Did Maze say why they aren’t still duking it out?” Amenadiel kept his voice low, even though he had prudently withdrawn to a considerable distance from the bench to make the call. Keen senses had always been Remy’s Thing.

“They lost track of each other when a condemned building fell in on them,” Linda was also speaking _sotto voce_. In the background, Maze was trying to teach a song in a language with too many gutturals to Charlie. “A missed kick took out a supporting wall. Maze can’t remember who threw it; they were both getting kinda muzzy.”

“Did the same explanation for their stalemate occur to you?”

“Uh-huh. You and your baby-snatching sister have a lot in common.”

“Remiel will never touch Charlie, Linda. She gave her word, and she’s painfully honourable; always has been. But as to the other thing…” Amenadiel chuckled. “Yes. I see what you mean.”

***

Amenadiel found Remy watching lights kindle across the buildings of the city, a luminous lattice in the L. A. night.

“It’s good, isn’t it?” he said.

“It is not immediately repulsive.”

“When we were younger, I used to wonder why Father had let all this,” Amenadiel gestured at the darkling world around, “play out so long. He has an endgame, after all; or, at least, we’ve always thought He does. These last couple of years down here, though… I’ve started to evolve a theory.”

Remiel looked curious. “How so?”

Amenadiel sat back on the bench, and took in a deep breath. Earth smells, with a faint tang from the taco truck which, this time in the evening, set up by the park gates. “He doesn’t want it to end.” Amenadiel glanced sideways. “Nor did you.”

***

“Human larynxes are pitiful and weak.” Maze looked up as Linda came back in from the kitchen. “So, Doc, what’s the verdict?”

Linda pinched the bridge of her nose. “You don’t have the yips.”

“It sure felt like I did.”

“Maze… when you hesitated, that drew out the fight?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And why, generally, do you go on fighting when you don’t have to?”

Maze shrugged. “Because I’m happy, or because I’m horn… Oh.” Her eyes widened. “Fu…”

“Not in front of the baby, Mazikeen.”

***

“It is true.” Remiel was pacing. “Father forgive me, it is true.”

“Remy…”

“I desire her – a beast from Lucifer’s demesne.” Remy knelt in front of Amenadiel, to the latter’s profound embarrassment. “O brother, I am fallen indeed!”

“You’re not fallen, Remy.” Amenadiel awkwardly took his sister by the shoulders and set her on her feet. “You’re lonely, and perhaps not great with people. You know, Maze – the hellspawn – is a lot like you. Intense, goal-oriented, fond of a fight. And a little scared of the world she’s almost the scariest thing in, because she’s never lost the sense of wonder that isn’t far from fear.”

“The hellspawn – Maze – is, indeed, a mighty warrior.” Remiel bit her lip. “If I sought her out tomorrow, do you think that she would be content to make trial again of who is mightier?”

“I think there’s nothing that Maze would like more.” Amenadiel coughed. “And, when you’ve both done with the besting… maybe a meal?”

“Hmm.” Remiel pondered. “That ochre ice-cream did smell nice.”

***

“So, Lucifer,” said Chloe, the following evening. “It looks like the ‘Babe Brawl’ entered a second day.”

“I’m glad to hear it, Detective. We all know how much L. A. loves a sequel.”

“Only, after a while, this time, it seems that they weren’t… fighting.” Chloe’s cheeks reddened. “Although, apparently, they were still quite energetic.”

“Good for them.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything more about this? Seeing as you said it was being handled?”

“Oh, knowledge is a great thing, Detective.” Lucifer threw some scrunched-up paper into a basket. “I’ve been saying that to you people for a very, very long time.”

FINIS


End file.
